Dear Friends,
This week’s Torah portion includes one of the most famous episodes in all of the Torah. As the people begin to contemplate what it will take to enter the Land of Israel and settle there, Moses sends a small band of scouts (commonly referred to as spies) to surreptitiously explore the land so the Israelites could be better prepared for what awaited them. Moses selects leaders from each tribe and then gives them explicit instructions. They are to quietly enter the land and carefully observe and report what they see.
Twelve individuals are selected and sent to explore the hill country. Their job is to report back and answer specific questions.
Are the people who dwell in the land strong or weak?
Do large numbers of people live in the land or is it sparsely populated?
Are their towns open or fortified?
Is the soil rich or poor?
Is it wooded or not?
(Num. 13:17-20)
As the great sage known as the Rashbam observes, “All this kind of information was needed so that they would know to take with them the tools needed to lay siege to fortresses, for example.”
The scouts do as they are asked, and upon their return offer the following report.
“The country we traversed and scouted is one that devours its settlers. All the people we saw in it are men of great size; we saw the Nephilim there—the Anakites are part of the Nephilim—and we looked like grasshoppers to ourselves, and so we must have looked to them.”
(Num. 13:32,33)
Much has been made of the report offered by the scouts. They focus on the statement, “We looked like grasshoppers to ourselves, and so we must have looked to them,” and note that, as one scholar put it, “[While asked for a factual report,] the spies allow their opinions to intrude.”
As I reread the portion earlier this week I noticed something I had never before seen—Moses doesn’t actually ask them for a factual report. He asks, “Do large numbers of people live in the land or is it sparsely populated?” But “large numbers” is a subjective assessment. He asks, “Are the people who dwell in the land strong or weak?” But one must ask, “strong or weak compared to what?” The same goes for the assessment of whether the soil is rich or poor.
So when the scouts returned with a highly opinionated assessment of the situation, they were actually doing what Moses asked. They were offering their opinions. Thus one could argue that the flawed report and God’s subsequent anger at the scouts was not the scouts’ fault but a direct result of Moses’ lack of clear instructions. It was a failure of leadership.
Then as now we need and deserve leaders who are ethically grounded, truthful and committed to the wellbeing of the whole. More than that, however, we need and deserve leaders who communicate clearly and delineate a clear, kind, moral path forward. When that happens, people know what is expected of them. When it doesn’t, chaos ensues.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Daniel Cohen